


Radioactive

by hyronprojectalpha



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But they're also in the chapter summaries if u wanna set the vibe I guess, Eventually With a Side of Humour, F/M, Future Warnings for Non-Con and Torture, Incredibly Canon Divergent Middle East, M/M, Overly Forced Greek Mythology References, Partially Canon-Compliant Retelling of Post-Human Revolution, Past Adam Jensen/Francis Pritchard, Past Adam Jensen/Megan Reed - Freeform, Set After Human Revolution, Spoilers for Black Light, Spoilers for Children's Crusade, Spoilers for Human Revolution, Spoilers for Mankind Divided, Spoilers for System Rift, Spoilers for The Missing Link, This fic also has an 8tracks mix in the works, every chapter has a track name and I'll post it when it's done, time jumps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:14:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8700640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyronprojectalpha/pseuds/hyronprojectalpha
Summary: It was said Europa’s charm was so enticing that it would lure in any man, mortal or god. So enticing even, that Zeus came down and took him for his own. And Zeus so loved Europa that he had Daedalus craft her a great automaton protector. It was he, Talos, that would protect the fair maiden from those who wished to steal her away. 

In the wake of the fall of Belltower, Adam Jensen searches to find the lost asset known as the Europa Project on behalf of Janus and the Collective. The fallout wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind.
(title derived from that Imagine Dragons song, what a surprise, I know)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First off, thanks for being here. This is my first work in the fandom, and I'm forever shamed it's an OC fic but hey, I had a story in my mind and it had to go somewhere. Second, I'm posting this on the eve of uni finals week, so go figure that's going to be a little rough on the update schedule but I'm going to try my best. 
> 
> Now, this prologue is super short so I'm posting it back to back with the first chapter, which is also pretty short. This section is set post-Black Light, pre-Children's Crusade and Mankind Divided. 
> 
> Additionally, The later setting for Tehran in this fic is slight canon divergence, but using the official timeline, I tried to have a Deus Ex realistic Middle East backdrop.

_It was said Europa’s charm was so enticing that it would lure in any man, mortal or god. So enticing even that Zeus came down and took him for his own. And Zeus so loved Europa that he had Daedalus craft her a great automaton protector. It was he, Talos, that would protect the fair maiden from those who wished to steal her away._

  
———— _Rifleman Bank Station, 2027_ ————  
  
“She’s the best candidate we have for your research, Doctor Reed.”  
  
“You’re talking about your daughter, Mr. Mazandarani. You know that, right?”  An Australian voice spoke up.  
  
“Dr. Kavanagh, I don’t think I asked for your opinion.”  
  
“Her genetic condition is a unique opportunity for introducing the Patient X genetic mutation. It would solve your rejection problems with the Hyron Project. Parvana Mazandarani. is a perfect test subject.” It was the voice of another woman.  
  
She couldn’t make out the bodies through the floor grate in the room she was being held, but the voices filtered down fine. The man with the Farsi accent, all too familiar, her father. The Australian woman, this Dr. Kavanagh and the other woman, assumed to be this Reed. Parvana tried to unhook the sedative IV they had in her arm, but her clouded vision made this task harder than it should be.  
  
She was certain she was about to become a human pincushion of a test subject for something she certainly wasn’t briefed on. They’d had the sense to handcuff her to a medical cart in the holding cell, knowing the electronic panel wouldn’t have posed too much  of a challenge for a computer programmer. She’d wished they hadn’t have had the sense, but it was it was. The cell was devoid of anything else to escape with, just her and the medical supplies, and the glass walls. Parvana had learned through experience, Rifleman Bank was a hell that wasn’t designed to be escaped.

  
  
———— _Omega Ranch, Singapore_ ————

  
“Log one, Doctor Megan Reed, Project Codename: Europa.”  Megan Reed set the voice recorder on the table as she approached her anaesthetized patient. “Subject name, Parvana Mazandarani. Age 21. Female.”  
  
“Subject presents with unique genetic disorder, immunity dysfunction. Patient lacks immune response to foreign invasive material. Possible variant on SCID,” Megan held in her hand a petri dish and a long syringe needle. “Due to the disorder, I will theoretically be able to replace the damaged genetic material with a synthesized gene therapy treatment from Patient X. Post radiation and gene implantation with a CRISPR variation, if the subject host does not reject the genetic mutation, augmentation surgery will continue on as planned.”  
  
Genetic therapy was mainstream these days, correction of autoimmune disorders and genetic mutations weren’t complicated science. Replicating an incredibly rare mutation in a host body with an incredibly rare genetic complication, perhaps not so mainstream. Megan figured herself the most competent for the job.  
  
She examined the dish in her hands again before placing it down. Adam Jensen’s genetic mutation, her entire life’s work. She thought of him sometimes, wondered if he still thought of her. She felt sorry for how much of his life she’d disrupted. He’d think she was dead, was he upset? If he knew she was alive, would he look for her? Is he even still alive? She didn’t like to think about it, how long she’d strung him along, manipulated him even. He’d loved her.  
  
She didn’t love him. She loved what he was to the science, her career. Megan shook it off, she had work to do.  
  
“Patient X mutagenic compound prepared and introduced into host subject via bone marrow graft. Autologous bone marrow cells treated with the compound will be re-grafted into host marrow.” She prepared the needle, a large gauge aspiration needle and slipped it carefully into the hip bone. An action that would indeed cause great pain, for the moment she was glad the girl was unconscious.  
  
“Follow up assessments will take place to observe the uptake of the mutation in the host subject. End log.”


	2. 1982

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to Tehran has Adam Jensen on the hunt for a girl that Janus has been keeping tabs on.
> 
> This chapter is titled for the song "1982" by Superhuman

———— _2029_ ————

  
“So here we stand, after the incident and what do we have? Belltower in ruins, assets lost. Where do we pick this up, Lucius?”  
  
The meeting room, though not a tangible one and instead a virtual projection, would fool any naked eye. A dark table, the avatars surrounding it like the knights of the mythical age and their round table. The head of the table’s calm demeanour never faltering as he addressed the Illumanti gathering.  
  
“Peace, Everett. The Incident has had unexpected fallout, yes, but we can repair. Alter the course.” Lucius DeBeers spoke evenly, directly looking to Everett.  
  
“The invaluable assets then?” The Picus CEO remained skeptical, “What of the work they were doing at Rifleman Bank? At Omega Ranch?”  
  
“The Hyron Project research was preserved.” It was Page who spoke this time, protecting himself from attacks on his company and researchers by his fellow Illumanti members. “We may have lost some of the prototypes, but it is all preserved in research.”  
  
“And what of Project Europa?” Everett continued his prodding, directed at Page now, “We had a lot riding on Reed and that project. And thanks to Bellower, we’ve lost it.”  
  
Page remained unaffected, believing he and his companies had maintained control in this situation. “I’ve retained Megan Reed at Versalife. Her research in many sectors will be very valuable in the upcoming plans.”  
  
“Gentlemen.” The head of the table rose again, “Project Europa is not lost. There have been reports of sightings after we transferred some assets in the wake of Belltower’s fall. If all works out to plan, the project will be delivered right to us.”  
  
“Not if Janus and the Collective get to it first.”  
  
“Enough, Everett.”

   
  
———— _Airspace over Tehran, Iran_ ————  
  
The overwhelming hum of the VTOL buzzed in Jensen’s ears as Alex Vega pulled back to a slower pace as they neared their destination. Out the window, spread out in front them was Tehran, capital of Iran, and the new power of the Middle East. Jensen looked out at the vast sea of lights and skyscrapers below the VTOL, at the burgeoning population of one of Asia’s most populous and technologically advanced cities. After the 2015 Energy Crisis and the terrorist bombings of the Saudi oil fields coupled with the heavy demand for dwindling energy resources, the nuclear sanctions were lifted from many countries, including Iran. By 2025, the country had established itself as a nuclear power, creating the majority of the power for the area and attracting back the scientists lost to other countries during the economic failure years before. The Iran that rose from the economic turn was powerful, wealthy and heavily supported by a large scientific and educated community who produced some of the greatest technologies available in the area.  
  
“You ever been there?” The pilot didn’t take her eyes off the sky as she questioned Jensen.  
  
Jensen couldn’t peel his eyes from the sprawling city below them, “No, never been anywhere in the Middle East.”  
  
“It’s different there now, especially in Tehran.” Alex tapped her fingers a little on a control panel as she looked for a suitable landing zone, “After the fall of the government, when the economy was skyrocketing, the whole place just kind of changed.”  
  
“The republic fell, right? And now it’s sort of a capitalist haven trying to be reclaimed by the Islamic republic that once ran it?” Jensen wasn’t entirely clear on his world history, but he was alright on the big picture of the political landscape of one of the world’s most hostile areas.  
  
In the wake of the economic revival, the government of Iran was overthrown due to pressures from multinational corporations looking to make profits in the area. The Islamic rule wasn’t kind to progressive technology laws, and granting power to the corporations looking to stake claims in the area. The augmentation laws were the most contested, due to the religious restrictions on body modification. In the end, technology advanced too quickly in the area for the government to hold it back, and it began Iran’s next political revolution. The revolution was not a peaceful one, the private military companies hired by the invading multinational corporations were not afraid of exercising force on the local opposition. Previously crippled by sanctions placed on not only the economy but the military forces of Iran, they were in no condition to fight back.  
  
“I hear the fundamentalist regime is gaining ground again, the fighting in the outer territories is getting pretty fierce.” Alex continued, “Nothing like political revolution and civil war to wake you up in the morning.”  
  
“So why exactly are we heading into this then?” Jensen pointedly asked.  
  
“Janus has a person of interest here.” The pilot sent the VTOL into descent when they reached a suitable piece of the outskirts to drop down to, “Someone that shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”  
  
“It’s a recruitment mission.”  
  
“Something like that. You’re looking for a girl, Parvana Mazandarani. There’s a picture of her in the file on your pocket sec.”  
  
“Better be more than a picture if you want me to find someone in that city.” Jensen made a vague gesture out to the sprawl below them, not that Alex was looking.  
  
“Janus says she’s ex-Belltower, a hacker. But I don’t think that’s exactly right.”  
  
“You mean, you’re doubting the mighty Janus?” Jensen laughed.  
  
“Don’t give me that, Adam.” Alex wavered, “I was with Belltower, you know? Never heard of her working, and you’d think I would have if she was in it, because Hamid Mazandarani, he was a vice director of the Chinese operations for all of Belltower.”  
  
“A relative, you think?”  
  
“I think maybe his daughter. But I don’t know, man, it said that he had a daughter named Parvana in his files, but back then in the documents it said the girl lived with her estranged mother in Tehran, not Hengsha like Hamid.” Alex didn’t speak about her time in Belltower often, but the knowledge often did become useful, “I read a lot about the higher ups, after I got out of there. This guy, man, he’s a walking human rights violation.”  
  
“You don’t think his daughter could have followed suit?” Jensen questioned.  
  
“Maybe, I don’t know. Something about it seems off.”  
  
Jensen scanned the file on the encrypted pocket secretary that Alex had given him when they first met up to head out here. It did indeed contain a picture of the girl, her face looked up at him from the image, long dark hair in a mess of waves, fine features placed on a backdrop of olive skin, gold augmented eyes boring into his own from the stillness of the picture. There was a biography, short but present, beside the picture. This was for certain, Parvana Mazandarani, listed as an ex-Belltower operative, and referred to as a master hacker with a large assortment of augmentations for the job. It stated she was born in 2006, in Sari, Iran and then her family relocated to Tehran. There was a section of time that was unaccounted for between 2025 and 2027 when she was registered as a citizen of Hengsha. Another section of blackout dates until she was recovered in a raid on Omega Ranch, in the fall of Belltower and then she was registered as a fugitive by the company itself before it fell completely to bankruptcy. After that was only a small note on the emergence back in Tehran and sightings near the university and local market districts in what seemed to be a poorer part of the city ghetto.  
  
“You’re right, something about this doesn’t seem right.” Jensen hovered his finger over the words Omega Ranch, knowing that it was those words right there that made this story complicated.  
  
“Good thing we have you to find her.” The pilot was poised to open the hatch of the VTOL for the drop. “You ready, Adam?”  
  
“As ready as I’ll I ever be” And in a flash, Jensen jumped from the VTOL’s open hatch and descended using Icarus Landing to the city surface.

  
  
———— _The Grand Bazaar, Panzdah-e Khordad Street, Tehran_ ————

  
The introduction to the city was a little less subtle than expected, as Jensen wandered to the market district where the file suggested the girl had been seen before. The waypoint marker on his HUD directing him exactly where to go, thankfully, as the crowded streets and unfamiliar scenery had Jensen off his usual game. As he rounded the corner to _Panzdah-e Khordad_ and the sprawling marketplace, Jensen was distracted by an instance of loud yelling in the language that was too foreign to his ears to be able make out words. A motorbike had come by and threatened to wipe out a pack of men moving crates of wires and parts of some sort of drone robot, Jensen guessed, and the group and driver were then in a heated argument over the damage done. With the parts strewn across the street, and people ravaging the group to grab pieces of it, the owners of the electronics were fighting off the street-dwellers looking for a quick grab, along with the driver of the motorcycle who had caused the uproar. One of the men, still hurling around loud Farsi threats, took out a gun and simply shot the motorcyclist square in the kneecap, collected his men and the bigger pieces of the recovered mech and left the scene. Jensen was starting to think that political unrest was only the beginning of the problems in Tehran. No one stopped to look, or even assist the man down, the bloody mess. Civilians kept on walking, or stopped only to try and pillage a piece of whatever the tech left on the street was.  
  
The market itself appeared to be a gathering place for those left behind by the modernist revolution, those that were left destitute and foreign in their own land by new colonialism. Jensen stood among what seemed like thousands of people, swathed in cotton fabrics, light in colour, but heavy in layers. Traditionalism blended with modernity, women in draping headscarves next to men with full limb augmentations. Jensen realized then, that he stood out painfully amongst the locals of the market. Yet somehow, despite some glances in his direction, in the chaos and cacophony of the bazaar, Jensen was irrelevant.  
  
Jensen raised his hand to his ear to kick on his Infolink. “Hey, Alex. Don’t suppose our friend Janus could get a GPL hit on our girl here?”  
  
“I’ll see what I can do.” Alex sighed, “Is it overwhelming?”  
  
“That’s one way to put it.” Jensen looked through the crowds again, “There’s no way I’ll find anyone here, she picked a good place to hide.”  
  
“Look around. I’ll get back to you.” 

  
He made his way along the market stalls and throngs of people, many shoving past him as he tried to look around. Faces covered, and everyone part of the anonymous masses, Jensen realized just exactly why someone would chose to hide here. As he walked past rows upon rows of stalls of bolts of hanging fabric, recovered tech parts, bootleg technology, clothing and even food, Jensen felt overwhelmed by the foreign nature of the whole experience. The market was an assault on all the senses, between the loud chatter and sounds of trading commerce, the overwhelming smell of foods Jensen couldn’t identify with his American tastes, and the crowded,  packed full stalls of every good known to man assaulting the eyes. He made his way far enough that stalls of food, and fabrics turned to more technology and software, and even crudely made salvage augmentations. Worlds apart from the high class dealers of the wealthier areas of the city, this was the mass market of the new Tehran ghetto, and Adam Jensen couldn’t get a handle on the atmosphere.  
  
“You’re in luck, man. Janus has a lock on her GPL. She’s jacked into the internet right now, so he managed to grab a locale.” Alex’s voice came crackling back across the Infolink, much to Jensen’s relief.  
  
“Upload the coordinates so I can get this over with.”  
  
“Not a fan of the market, I take it.” Alex laughs, but the waypoint marker appeared on Jensen’s HUD anyways.  
  
The new waypoint was still in the marketplace, but up on a higher level than the ground floor that Jensen found himself on now. He made his way, edging through the crowds up the stairs to the upper stalls, which became much more computer technology focused the closer to his destination he got. Hacking software, multitools, augmentation chips, biochips, RFID unlocking implants, they were all there. If a hacker was going to have a haven, Jensen assumed this would be a straightforward locale. He stops at the stall where the GPL signal was broadcasting from, face to face with a darker-skinned man with two mismatched augmented arms in heavy steel-toned metal.  
  
“You looking for something, tourist?” The man snarled in his heavy accent, clearly not interested in Jensen’s time.  
  
“Yeah, someone you might know. Mazandarani.”  
  
The man only laughed, “You gotta an appointment, brother?”  
  
“Wasn’t aware I needed one.”  
  
“Oh, sister doesn’t see people unless I say so. What kind of job you need done, brother?” The man looked Jensen up and  down again, his tone gaining more of a threatening edge.  
  
“It’s pretty sensitive information, I can’t really let you in on that, brother.”  Jensen wasn’t threatened, he didn’t need to be, but playing it cool in such a crowded situation was likely a better plan.  
  
The man gestured Jensen away from the stall, “Go find someone else then.”  
  
“No, see, I was sent here to see this girl, and I’m going to see her. You’re not about to stop me.” Jensen extends a nanoblade and covertly tucks the blade under the man’s chin, “You know what I mean? You let me in, and no one gets hurt. Didn’t come here to make a mess.”  
  
“Okay, okay!” The man pulled away from the blade and let Jensen by, cursing after him in Farsi.  
  
The back area of the stall, shrouded off by fabric and sheet metal, was the makeshift backroom that was nearly empty save a sprawling computer set up on a far table that was complex enough to intrigue even the likes of Francis Pritchard. Seated in front of it, jacked directly into the system via a corded uplink to a spinal augmentation, was the figure of a girl. Parvana Mazandarani, as Jensen recognized from the photograph. As Jensen came up behind her, he noticed in the reflection of the screen that her eyes, though open, were blank, the augmentations unfocused on anything tangible in the real world. The girl was effectively somewhere else, connected to something in the computer system through her augments. Here, Jensen could only be reminded of the girls tied to the Hyron Project computer as the drones and Zhao Yun Ru back on Panchaea.  
  
Just as Jensen was fighting off the creeping feeling of the darkness and the heavy water pulling him under in his mind, he turned back to see the girl, now fully conscious and holding a cocked pistol to his chest.  
  
“You made a big mistake coming here, Adam Jensen.” Parvana looked up at him, her eyes glittering and alive now. They looked similar to Jensen’s own, a pair of twin Sarif optic augmentations staring back at him.  
  
“How do you know my name?” Jensen asked, making sure he didn’t move.  
  
“I know all about you. I know who you are.” She nudged him with the gun, “Your girl, Megan Reed, she doesn’t know how to keep secrets very well.”  
  
Omega Ranch being in her files, and her knowing Megan didn’t sit will with Jensen. When Jensen found out all the research Megan had done for Darrow at the end, and all the work with his DNA that she hadn’t planned on telling him about, it didn’t sit well with him either.  
  
“You with Belltower? With Versalife?” Her hands shook as she held the gun, faltering on the trigger ever so slightly.  
  
Truth, Jensen decided, was what he owed the girl. “I’m with the Juggernaut Collective.”  
  
“The Collective?”  She pulled the gun back from his chest.  
  
“Janus thinks you could help the group out.” Jensen looked at the computer array, “I think he’s probably right.”  
  
“You still shouldn’t have come here.” She slips the gun back in a hip holster, and pulls her tan cowl styled wrap back around her body. The tan fabric overwhelming her petite and svelte frame, hanging from her like drapes. Jensen looked her over once more, the photo didn’t do her justice, he thought. Her face was fine featured, just as the photo, but in real life she was far more doll-like, far more graceful looking. His eyes traced back to her glittering eyes, then to a fine nose, and a perpetually pouting bottom lip. Her body like that of an athlete, but incredibly graceful, like a dancer. In another life, he figured she would have been an actress, a model. Instead they were still in the bazaar, a weapon in her possession, and threats on her lips.  
  
“What are you doing here, in the middle of a crowded market then? Found a pretty good hiding place.” He hadn’t intended for his reply to come out so sarcastically.  
  
“Not good enough, you’re still here.” The girl waved her hand vaguely as she spoke.  
  
“I’m not the bad guy” Jensen reassured.  
  
“I don’t know that, and it doesn’t matter. I’m a fugitive, and you could be leading people right to me.”  
  
It didn’t make sense to Jensen, how she had ended up back in Tehran. “Why did Belltower send out a warrant on you?”  
  
“Oh, I see you know about me too.”  
  
“Not enough. Don’t know how you got here, or how you know Megan Reed.” Jensen paused, “I mean, I guess if you are ex-Belltower, Omega Ranch would be how you know her.”  
  
“I’m not with Belltower. I’m not with anyone” Parvana nearly snarled. “Those people made me what I am, they did this to me, in spite of what I wanted.”  
  
“What exactly did they do?”  
  
“Your girl, Megan? Took your fancy genetics and messed with mine to make me into their own personal computer. Started out with the OCM, the Hyron Project, but then they had other ideas.”  
  
He’d have to admit, that sounded like Megan’s research. And if she was a patient at Omega Ranch, and involved with the Hyron Project, it would make sense why Jensen had such a violent flashback earlier. “Your father worked for Belltower, he wouldn’t have had you involved in Hyron, would he?”  
  
“It was his idea.” The girl’s face was alive with anger, “At Rifleman Bank. Him and that monster, Burke.” Her story lined up with Jensen’s own knowledge, Belltower’s involvement with the Hyron Project, the experiments at Rifleman Bank, even Megan and Omega Ranch.  
  
“I guess I owe them one.” She spoke again.  
  
“Owe who?” Jensen asked.  
  
“The Collective. I hear they’re the reason Interpol busted down Rifleman Bank.” Parvana leaned against the computer table, looking down to the floor, “The reason my father and Burke are six feet under.”  
  
“And that’s why you owe them?”  
  
“You think that’s wrong?” Her gaze came back to his face as she spoke.  
  
“Considering I killed them, I don’t think I can judge you.” Jensen crossed his arms, unsure of what would follow from his confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so thanks for being here, again. This is my first proper posting, so I'm still hazy on it. I wrote this all today, after I finally sat down to do this the right way. So it's SEVERELY unedited and maybe not my best work, but if I don't post it now, I never will. Also I realize the severe lack of plot in these first sections, hang on with me, okay?
> 
> That said, again, it's finals week here on my end of the world so, I'll try and update soon, but no promises. It'll be erratic, for now. Could be tomorrow, could be a few days, I don't know.


	3. Heavy in Your Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good deals go bad on the streets of Tehran, Jensen and Parvana end up in a difficult situation.
> 
> This chapter is titled after "Heavy in Your Arms" by Florence + the Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains waterboarding as a method of torture, and description of drowning, if this content is an issue for you, please don't read (this chapter also contains flashbacks, hence the change in times)
> 
> Thanks for reading! This is still surreal, finally posting fic. I had a bit of time, pulling an all-nighter before a test, so I finished off this next chapter for this.

“Did you think I would be angry at you?” Parvana brushed a piece of her hair out of her face that had escaped from her cowl’s head covering, “I’m glad he’s gone, I never wanted him near me to begin with.”  
  
Parvana had explained to Jensen how her father was the reason she ended up at Rifleman Bank and subject to Belltower’s experiments. Kidnapped from her mother in Tehran by her father, and taken to Hengsha when she was nineteen, she had been rotated from doctor to doctor in attempts to cure a congenital genetic disorder that left her with a severely dysfunctional immune system. When her father came into control of Belltower’s black site in China, he had learned through Rifleman Bank about Megan’s research and in a last-ditch effort to fix his child’s fault, sent her to the prison to be part of the research and testing.  
  
“I’m not going to say you’re welcome.” Jensen didn’t like to think about what he’d done back the Belltower black site, it was one of the darker chapters in his time working for Sarif.  
  
“I don’t expect you to.”  
  
Jensen figured it was time to get back to the problem at hand, “So what exactly did they do to you?”  
  
“After the gene therapy, when they made me like you and immune to rejection, they wanted to make me a Hyron drone.” She shifted on her feet, getting restless with all the talking. “But, then a higher up decided there was something better to be done with quantum computing. So, I guess in theory I am a drone, but it was something called Europa. A remote hacking drone, with all the ability to use the quantum computer uplink to directly connect to the NSN. Nothing would be safe, secrets would cease to exist. I could hack into anything hosted on the servers.”  
  
Janus had a goldmine for the hacktivist cause, and Jensen saw why it was suddenly so important to have this girl on their side now, lest she fall back into the wrong hands.  
  
“See, I’m a pretty decent hacker. You learn a lot when you can’t go outside because you have no immune system, and your best friend is a computer.” The girl shrugged, “the millions of dollars of Sarif chips in my brain don’t make it any harder, either.”  
  
“You were made to be an Illumanti spy.”  
  
“That about sums it up, yeah.”  
  
“So why are you here? How did you get here?” Jensen questioned once more.  
  
“This is my home. When I got away from Belltower, when everything went under in the raids, I managed to slip out of a facility in all the chaos. They didn’t think very hard when they gave me a cloaking aug.” Parvana sat on the top of the table, “After I got out, I made myself some fake documents to get back home.”  
  
“And then you set up shop here?”  
  
“You’ve got to make a living somehow.” She twirled a processor chip in her fingers, a nervous fidget.  
  
Jensen took a seat in the chair in front of her. “But without the quantum computer, you’re not really the full Europa project?”  
  
“Not entirely, but I can still directly interface with the NSN, it just takes a little bit more effort. Have to look around by hand, not the entire server at once, like with all the power of the big guns with Hyron.”  
  
Jensen knew exactly what the girl was doing here, it was the same was what Pritchard had gone back to in Detroit after Sarif Industries went bankrupt. Once you’re a hacker, you always have black hat skills to fall back on to make a living. He figured, if Pritchard could make a living in Detroit, this girl would have no problems attracting clients in the tech haven of Tehran.  
  
“So Janus wants me to join the Collective?” She prods the question once more.  
  
“I have a pocket sec for you, with details on what Janus wants.” Jensen pulled the device from the pocket of his coat and handed it over to the girl.  
  
“I’ll make you a deal, Adam Jensen, you help me out with a little problem here, and I’ll go along with the Collective.” She read through the device as she spoke.  
  
“What kind of little problem?” Jensen sighed, he always got pulled into these situations.  
  
“I may have gotten on the wrong side of Steiner-Bisley. Especially their offshoot manufacturing plant here.” She went back to fidgeting, this time with the pocket sec in her hands. “I had a high profile client, trying to secure some weapon blueprints, and well, maybe I didn’t get out as clean as I thought. But I still have to deliver the goods, and they want it in person.”  
  
“Corporate espionage, a hacker speciality.” Jensen taunted.  
  
———— _District 14, Tehran —_ ———  
  
When Parvana had said high profile client, Jensen wasn’t thinking she had meant Stasiuk Arms. The Slavic weapons manufacturer had sent a representative to collect the stolen data first hand, an insurance policy to make sure the job was done right. Jensen was tailing the girl as she made her way through the city’s District 14 to find the lounge that had been decided on as the drop point. As she turned the corner into the alleyway short cut, Jensen lost sight of her for merely a minute. However, it turns out a minute was long enough. As he himself rounded the corner, Jensen caught a glimpse of Parvana being held up at gun point by one man, and held physically with an arm across her neck by a man behind her. Likely an ambush by Steiner-Bisley, if their choice of Zenith CA-40 pistols was any measure.  
  
The girl screamed, but in her native Farsi, so Jensen couldn’t understand.  
  
“Don’t play stupid with me, girl,” The man holding her throat chided. “We know who you are.”  
  
Without thinking, Jensen pulled his stun gun and took aim.  
  
“She brought a bodyguard!” Before either one of them could react, the second man dropped an EMP blast that rendered both of the augmented useless.  
  
————————  
  
When Jensen awoke his head was throbbing, his augmentations felt like dead weight, and he had no bearings on where he was. The room was dark, possibly a hangar, a basement. He wasn’t sure. As he came to, he tried to piece together the last of his memories of what had gone down in Tehran, Parvana, the Collective, Steiner-Bisely. There it was, the drop. It obviously hadn’t gone to plan. He worked up the effort to crane his head to look around the room better, it was definitely a hangar, or storage wing, and it was nearly barren save for the back of the room with rows of inactive 80-X Boxguards linings its shelves. The weight of his augmentations felt familiar to him, trying to pull his hands free from behind himself he realized why. The metal bangle type restraint, the magnetized one, same as at Facility 451. One on each wrist this time, his augmentations fully disabled. He wasn’t alone, however. Parvana was next to him, her body slumped against his shoulder, not yet conscious. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been here, his body ached and fatigue was weighing heavily on him.    
  
“Parvana.” Jensen started, “Come on, Parvana. I know you’re still breathing.”  
  
When the girl eventually rose back into consciousness, she only groaned.  
  
“I think we’re going to be waiting here a while.” Jensen said, a stain of annoyance on his voice.  
  
“Where are we?” Parvana mumbled.  
  
“Somewhere courtesy of your friends at Steiner-Bisely.”  
  
Jensen knew their captors intended to leave them here alone for as long as possible, with their augmentations disabled they weren’t a flight risk, and extended capture was a good method of information extraction. If they weren’t going to divulge the information to begin with, two days of starvation usually gets someone talking. Steiner-Bisely was looking for answers about who had cracked their security, and who sent them to do it.  
  
“Remember how you said you knew me because of Megan?” Jensen mused.  
  
“Is that really important right now?”  
  
He had a captive audience now. “We’re not going anywhere. Just answer.”  
  
———— _Omega Ranch, Singapore, 2027_ ————  
  
“So where exactly is this? Is this still Rifleman Bank?” The surroundings felt different from her last memory. Still sterile, still medical, but somehow not the same. They’d been running simple medical tests on her for what has felt like days, calibration to the augmentation they said. She had learned the extent of her new augments over the last few days she was in this new area. Both eyes, full spinal cord connection ports, hacking chips, social chips, radar enhancements, networking chips, cloaking, something they call “Icarus Landing System”.  
  
Parvana had figured she was a Sarif Industries branded computer at this point.  
  
“It’s not. Rifleman Bank had some unexpected complications. We’re grateful you made it out alive. You’re an important asset.” The woman stood over her, speaking of her almost as if she were a pet, or possession. “My name is Doctor Reed.”  
  
“What did you all do to me? Where am I?” If she had had the energy, Parvana would have questioned harder, had more fight in her. For now she was tired. Logically she thought, confusion can only go on for so long before you give up on asking questions and expecting answers.  
  
“You’re at Omega Ranch. The World Health Organization is here to make sure you’re safe, you’re healthy. You’re part of a very unique research opportunity. A once in a lifetime chance at very special and expensive augmentations.”  Megan continued on. “You’re going to change the world.”  
  
“What kind of complications were you talking about?” Parvana didn’t have time for the revolutionary plot, she needed to get her bearings. “At Rifleman Bank.”  
  
“Does that matter right now?” Megan almost seemed angry, maybe she was. “Can we focus on what’s going on here instead?”  
  
Parvana tried to sit up, to look around better. “No, no. My father was a director at the station, for Belltower. Where is he?”  
  
It was Megan’s turn now to avoid a topic, she went back to looking at the ebooks on the table in front of her.  
  
“Where?”  
  
“There was a break-in. A stow-away. I don’t know who, they didn’t tell me. The entire complex is being raided and investigated by Interpol, but they’ve maintained the most important assets. Sent here and to Panchaea. Like you. Commander Burke, Lieutenant Commander Keitner, and Vice Director Mazandarani are among the casualties.” Megan looked sympathetic, if only for a moment. “The stow-away caused massive setbacks, we’re resuming research here.”  
  
“Research? Did you mean turning unsuspecting people into lab rats and robots?” The girl almost spat out at her, some raw emotion coming to the surface. The loss of her father not the focus of her rage, but the state of nonchalance about the radical surgery performed on her body.  
  
“It’s state of the art, life changing research. I wouldn’t speak of it so lightly,”  
  
Parvana bit back a bitter laugh, as if it was almost insulting the way she spoke at her. “Easy for you to say, you still have your spine where you left it.”  
  
Megan turned back to her lab table, to her computer.  
  
“Who is he? Adam Jensen. Why is he so important to you?” Parvana had only so much time to be idle these last few days, she’d started hacking her way through Reed’s databases for information. The name appeared only in confidential files, but extrapolating that this “Adam Jensen” was “AJ09-0921 Patient X” wasn’t a big leap.  
  
“How did you learn that name?” Megan looked her usual level of irritated, maybe a bit more than usual. Maybe Parvana had struck a nerve.  
  
“Your file encryption isn’t as good as you, or Hugh Darrow think it is.”  
  
“Since you’ve read it, I don’t know why you’re asking. Adam Jensen was someone I knew, a while ago. He was a unique subject. Sort of like you. All my work is based on this genetic aberration.” Her voice always sounded so cold, so clinical.  
  
“Except in your email archives there’s more to this story, isn’t there?”  
  
Megan put her pocket secretary down then, her attention fully caught. “No boundaries, I see.”  
  
“I’m a prisoner here with millions of dollars worth of computer chips in my brain. I’m not going to sit here and do nothing. Let me go and we won’t have this problem.” Parvana didn’t want to dig into the dirt of her captors like this, but she needed leverage. “Or you can suffer with me knowing you had a relationship with this man just to exploit him for some genetic code.”  
  
“That’s not the whole story.” Megan’s reply came quietly, like a exhausted whisper.  
  
“It’s enough of it, isn’t it?”  
  
“Sarif Industries was on the verge of the biggest discovery in human augmentation, my discovery. He made this happen.” Another pittance of defence.  
  
“You’re not really defending yourself, are you?”  
  
“Can I?”  
  
“Did you love him?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
———— _Steiner-Bisely Hangar, Tehran, 2029_ ————  
  
“So you hacked her research database.” Jensen had retracted his glasses by now, throughout Parvana’s story, his eyes almost hinting at a drop of sadness. Megan Reed had always came back to haunt him, to pick at his feelings even though she wasn’t actually in his life anymore.  
  
“You shouldn’t waste your time with her.” The girl looked at him, her own eyes the matching set to Jensen’s, they had even worn a similar expression.  
  
He bit back a laugh, a pittance of a laugh.  
  
“I mean it. She isn’t worth it.” Parvana pushed on, “Whatever you saw in her, you’ve got to know, it was some kind of act. She used you.”  
  
“I know.” His voice was stony. “I know that.”  
  
“And I know you’re not going to forget about her.”  
  
Jensen turned his gaze back to the floor. “What makes you say that?”  
  
“Because that’s what love is like.”  
  
But before Jensen could answer her vague reply, their captors came back onto the scene. Seemingly tired of waiting, the man made his way back over to them, hauling Parvana up by her arm.  
  
“What about hanzer, here?” The man tilted his head at Jensen, as he questioned his partner.  
  
“He’s just the muscle, the girl’s the one we want.”  
  
“Stay here with him, I don’t trust the bastard.” The thug pulled Parvana up to standing, to take her to another room, leaving only Jensen and the other guard behind.  
  
A tense silent moment passed before Jensen snapped his sunglasses back down.  
  
“How do you think this is going to end for you?” He asked the guard.  
  
The man stared down at him, pistol drawn in his hand.  “What?”  
  
Finding the strength he once had in Facility 451 to work past the restraint’s pull, he managed to swing one leg far enough to trip the unsuspecting guard to the floor, his pistol clattering to the ground with him. Jensen held the guard down with his leg, as he swung his arms around close enough to the keycard on the man’s ID badge which released the lock on the restraint on his wrist. With the restraint disengaged, Jensen was free to knock the man out, and confiscate the pistol. Part of him was surprised that his weak plan had worked out for the best, his experience must have been working for him.  
  
Shaking off the last of the after effects of the EMP restraints, Jensen crouched by the door, engaging MAGPIE eye to see if there was any security in the way as he tried to tail Parvana. Marking the 4 security guards, in the hall, Jensen also took note of the hangar’s ventilation shaft which ran up and past the hallway into a farther room. Resorting to his usual tactics, Jensen chose to make his way through the vents to move unseen. As much as he knew that he couldn’t let Janus’ target die at the hands of some company, Jensen was aware he was beginning to feel protective over the girl himself.  
  
As he made his way through the vent system, pausing to glance through the open observation grids as he went along, he realized this building was a lot larger than a just a hangar. Jensen remembered hearing Parvana mention an offshoot manufacturing plant in the city and it was seeming more and more likely that that’s where they were being held. He could see various doors, and a large elevator in the upper lobby area he was now looking into. The myriad of different locations making it hard to pinpoint where their captors had taken the girl. Without a map of the building to go on, Jensen was flying blind and at an extreme disadvantage.  
  
After what seemed like precious hours ticking by, as Jensen snaked his way through vents, and overcrowded storage rooms he finally caught a glimpse of the people he was after. Three figures through the wall, MAGPIE eye showing him two larger men standing and talking at a smaller figure who was seated in a chair. Through the vent Jensen could hear the confrontation between the parties.  
  
“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.” One of the male captors taunted, “Did you want us to look into that special computer brain of yours to find out ourselves?””  
  
“I’d like to see you try,” Parvana countered back, voice filled with venom. She tried anything to struggle, biting at the hands of her captors if they drew close. Kicking back at them when they drew near once again. Jensen wasn’t sure she was the same girl he’d met earlier, this figure filled with rage, with tenacity.  
  
There was an unmistakable noise of electric current connecting with the flesh of something living, and a cry escaped Parvana’s lips. Jensen tried to make his way further down the corridor to the room they were in, but a guard patrol was still blocking his path in the hallway bellow.  
  
“This isn’t fucking getting us anywhere, I don’t have time for this!” The other man, with the Germanic accent barked, “Who the fuck sent you?”  
  
Jensen was losing time to reach her. He stepped from his cover, remaining cloaked, and with his reflexes back to their unnatural agility, he cracked the skulls of the two patrol men together. Dropping their limp, unconscious bodies back to the ground.  
  
By the time Jensen had made it to the utility room the men were holding Parvana captive in, the men had gotten tired of electrocution as motivation and turned right to something much harsher. As Jensen kicked the door open, breaking the lock mechanism with the sheer force, the sight before him was enough to make him feel ice cold.  
  
Blindfolded and with her hands still restrained behind her back, the man held Parvana roughly by the hair, forcing her head under the running water into the already full industrial sink. Pulling her head up by the wet and matted mass of brunette wavy hair, only to scream interrogation at her.  
  
“Who sent you!?” The man would bark, and when the only response was Parvana’s desperate choking and gasping, he would hold her back under the water. “You don’t fucking answer, and I’ll keep fucking doing it! Did you give them the blueprints you stole, you fucking bitch?  
  
All the years of police and SWAT training in Adam Jensen’s life felt meaningless now. Two years ago, the sight of waterboarding would insight action, not paralyzing flashbacks. The choking, the gasping, it had Jensen somewhere else. The crushing pressure of the ice cold water all around him, the Arctic ocean swallowing him whole. Parvana’s choking and desperate cries in Farsi sounded millions of miles away, as Jensen felt the world caving in on him, the burn of the water in his own lungs. The idle pain, the water all around him as he floated lifelessly through it. It was only the crack of two bursts of gunfire that woke Jensen from his terror.  
  
As the chair crashed back against the sink sending Parvana’s limp body sending her falling back into the metal basin of the water and bringing no ending to her asphyxiation, Jensen realized the gunfire came from the pistol he held in his own hand. He didn’t waste any more time, pulling her head from the water, his hand holding her neck and head upright as if she were a child. Her lips were an unnatural shade of blue, her features too still. He hauled her upright more, water spilling from her mouth and nose, a gasp followed by desperate choking.  
  
Jensen wished he didn’t know what it felt like.  
  
Her hands scrabbled at his arms, his chest, whatever was nearest. Her body ran cold, her physical presence marred by shuddering coughs and shivers. Each breath inhaled would feel like fire, like glass in the lungs. Her eyes were unfocused, her breathing ran ragged. Jensen could force himself to do nothing except hold her. The bodies of their captors laid bleeding out alongside them.  
  
———— _Juggernaut Collective’s Safe House, Outskirts of Tehran_ ————  
  
“What the hell happened, man?” Alex sounded relieved to hear Jensen’s voice, even if her panicked inquiry had said otherwise, “You dropped off the grid for almost a day and a half, Adam.”  
  
“You still in Tehran?” Jensen avoided the question, instead wondering they were communicating over Infolink instead of face to face.  
  
“Not too far away, but it wasn’t a safe place to hang around.”  
  
“Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”  
  
Alex sighed. “You gonna tell me what went down, Adam?”  
  
“Our girl got herself in some trouble with some big companies, here.” Jensen rubbed his beard, physically exhausted and mentally worn. “Steiner-Bisley is exactly the kind of company I suggest staying off the radar of, for future reference.”  
  
“Shit, why’d anyone go and pick a fight with one of the largest weapons manufacturers?” Alex’s surprise matched Jensen’s own when he’d first heard it as well.  
  
“Girl’s on payroll by Stasiuk Arms. Used the deal to broker access into some Palisade servers. She’s looking for information on Versalife.” Jensen explained, “Janus wasn’t wrong to recruit her. She was the Illuminati’s anthesis to Janus, the perfect hacker. They made her that way.”  
  
Alex stayed silent for a while, then piped back up, “So, where is she?”  
  
“We’re at the safehouse.” Jensen looked back to the well-worn couch, Parvana’s weathered figure curled upon it.  
  
“You got her to come with you?” Alex seemed surprised.  
  
“She was unconscious.” Jensen paused, unsure if he should continue. “You ever been tortured?”  
  
“Fuck, Adam. What did you get into?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
He disconnected the Infolink call, and looked out the cracked glass of the window. Farther out in the poorer district of the city, the location was filled with crumbling concrete buildings. High density living spaces, almost Soviet style apartments. Built before the economy repaired itself, today the area stood as the hole where the augmented or fundamentalist were sent to survive.  Two groups warring in one hellhole, ideologies morally opposed. Jensen picked up his can of warm beer once more. It had tasted bad, from a brand he didn’t know, a can he couldn’t read. He drank it anyway.  
  
————————  
  
The hand that touched his shoulder was small and meek, unsure.  
  
“Are you asleep?” Parvana stood at the side of the makeshift bed, a mattress on the floor.  
  
Jensen rolled from his side to face her, “No, I thought you were.”  
  
She shifted uneasily on her feet, her body language now completely different from the ferocity and spark she’d had hurled at her captors. Jensen knew she was troubled, couldn’t get the trauma out of her head. He’d spent enough of his own sleepless nights trying to get past his own demons not to know the struggle.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Probably should be,” she tailed off into a whisper.  
  
He followed her gaze, she was focused on looking at his augmentations. The first she’d probably properly seen them, not covered by his coat. Her eyes followed up the sleek black carbon alloy, the lines of false muscles catching the dim light from the hanging bulb in the room.  
  
“Did you want them? Your augmentations?” She spoke again, “Did they help you?”  
  
“I didn’t want them. David Sarif had this done, installed them all.” Jensen sat up, rubbing his face once again, running a hand through his hair. “But he saved my life, and I’ve saved others with them.”  
  
“You saved me.” She sat on the edge of the mattress.  
  
“I wasn’t going to watch them kill you.”  
  
“You’ve saved me more than once, Adam Jensen.” She looked at him again, her eyes raising from the floor to meet his.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Maybe I didn’t want it, but the experiments, your genetics, they saved me from a life I lived trapped in four walls, trapped away from the world.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, not looking away again but her voice remained almost whisper, “I was kept in isolation, I had almost no immune system. That’s not a problem anymore, I can go out, see what I want.”  
  
Jensen didn’t say anything, instead watched her run her fingers over her shoulders, her hand coming up to her face, her fingers resting against her mouth. She really was a nervous fidget.  
  
“You saved me again, when you made the mess at Rifleman Bank.” She smiled a little, against her hand, “You always seem to save me.”  
  
It was a strange phrase, an entirely strange conversation, but Jensen could almost feel the smile creep onto his own face.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m just speaking shit,” she tucked her knees against her chest. “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”  
  
Jensen put an augmented hand, carefully resting on her knee, her own reservations reflected in his own cautious behaviour, “You don’t have to be.”  
  
He didn’t know what to expect, he barely knew her. But somehow, Jensen didn’t think it was wrong when she leaned down and brought her lips to meet his own.  
  
“I just, it feels like I know you. Like you understand, I don’t know.” She whispered on, lips still against his face.  
  
  



	4. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events in the hangar, Jensen is ready to get out of Tehran. Or so he'd thought.
> 
> This chapter's title is from the song "Together" by The xx.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, sorry for the wait on this. Secondly, this is written really oddly because I took a large break in between the beginning and end of this chapter because I'm trying to balance studying for finals with hectic Christmas work hours. Third, this chapter is pretty short because it's kind of a bridge. Also, it contains mild plot spoilers for Black Light.

Loneliness crept into people in the strangest times, and was always found in the strangest places. They found it on each other, hidden in the breaths on the other’s face, kisses placed in the shadows where neck meets jawline. The loneliness carries a perfume of desperation, of desperate touches between strangers. Foreign, but familiar all the same.  
  
Jensen felt his own body going through the motions of slipping her loose tank top from her body, the cream coloured fabric sliding off her smooth olive skin. His hands felt distant, everything happened without his own thinking. Her hands rested on his chest as they fell back into the bed, or what sufficed as one. The old mattress on the floor made no sounds in response. Her skin, soft pale caramel, was warm and alive. Jensen slid one alloy hand up her arm, his augmentations in dichotomy with her sweet, warm skin.  
  
“Is this alright?” Her eyes found his in the dark of the room, bringing him back to his body once more.  
  
“Is it what you want?” Jensen mustered, as his only response.  
  
“I just don’t want to be alone.” Parvana repeats herself, the mantra laid heavy in her mouth.  
  
It had been long enough since Jensen last felt the touch of a woman. The feeling of her hands resting on his chest, her weight on top of him, it brought him to life in a way he hadn’t expected. Her soft lips traced his jawline, the tenderness of her face scraped by the beard there. He reached behind her back, unhooked the fabric that held back her breasts. Their eyes caught each other, as if asking for permission. Jensen dipped his head down, meeting the newly freed flesh and running his tongue over the surface, lavishing the nipple he’d found. Parvana softly whined at him, her hand finding the back of his head in return. She’d pulled at his hair as he’d traced his tongue lower, placing her back on the bed and his mouth finding the dip of her navel. He’d spent time there, before he methodically removed her almost already non-existent soft cotton shorts. He’d notice they were damp, the heat of the room, and the heat of the encounter itself finding them both aroused.  
  
Her hands scraped at his sides, the waistband of his pants. Her loneliness more exposed, the stench of desperation. She wished to have him naked, as vulnerable as herself. Jensen indulged her, removed the offending clothing.  
  
“Adam.” She called, voice lost in the moment, in the dark of the night.  
  
She’d call it again, a few times, as he’d returned to his previous ministrations. His mouth dipping lower, and lower. Finding the heat between her legs and rewarding her with languid strokes of his tongue, over the place that makes her body twinge and her lips utter his name once more. With each stroke of his tongue, her body shuddered under his. Her pleasure cried from her mouth, she pulled at his hair once more. Her hand was always on his skin. He’d pulled away, as she cried out in climax, his face was damp although he didn’t care. He was embarrassed, his cock was achingly hard and all it took as the touch, the smell of a woman’s skin. A woman’s humanity.  
  
He paused, the girl trying to climb onto him, to impale her desperation. He knelt in front of her, all too aware of her warm flesh, and the unfeeling, stark metal, the black alloy of his own body. He felt like a monster, like a machine. She was augmented too, Jensen would placate himself, but her body remained so human, it seemed pure. He wasn’t sure what he was doing here, but somehow it only felt right. He gently laid her back against the bed, and pushed his length inside her. They mutually groaned, locked in a kiss.  
  
Jensen wouldn’t remember it, the heat of the moment, the point where climax washed over the two bodies. He wouldn’t remember the feeling of her heat, closed tight around him. The muttering in Farsi that died on her lips, half whispered as she moaned. Joined together, shaking in heaving breaths. Her skin, it’s beautiful caramel, shone with the sweat of exertion, her face lost in the euphoria she came down from. They weren’t alone anymore, the desperation died down. Jensen wasn’t sure where they were then. He wouldn’t remember the heat of the moment, but he’d remember her eyes when she’d looked past her long dark lashes, searching for his face once more in the dark. All the while, her hand never leaving his body, holding onto his hair, resting on his chest, curled around his hip. As if he were a life preserver, and she couldn’t shake the burning pain in her lungs, and the feeling of drowning.  
  
————————  
  
He didn’t remember opening the blinds again, but the light streaming from the window bore onto his face and woke him from his morning haze. Jensen rolled over to seek the offending light source. In the frame of the window stood Parvana, still naked from their encounter, the sun framing her body as she looked out the glass. Jensen noticed now what he hadn’t last night, the inwards dip of her tiny waist, her girlish figure. The curve of her breast, small but well-shaped. The body of someone graceful, and lithe, not physically weathered by age but one kept fit by a high stress lifestyle. Her rib bones threatened to poke through her skin, her hip bones arching for freedom from their olive-toned prison. The metal that adorned her back, her unique augmentations marked her skin like a tattoo. Circular ports that marked along her back, spreading out their under skin wires in a pattern along the taught shoulder blades. As Jensen looked on, he swore that if you had connected the dots, the wires, they would form a symmetrical set of wings. Damaged flightless wings.  
  
She was beautiful, there was no ignoring it. But her face, though young, was tired. Her fine features held a sadness beyond their years, a knowledge too wise for her age. Parvana Mazandarani, standing there, framed by the morning sun was like an Iranian empress, in a different time her kingdom spread before her. Her beauty would shine down on them, on her plentiful city, her vast culture. In their time, she looked from he broken glass window, shoulders hung down, a girl looking down at the ruins of her homeland, the ghettos of her people. Jensen shook himself from his poetic reverie.  
  
“Did I wake you?” She asked, though she didn’t wait for a reply, she came and to lay back on the mattress.  
  
“Don’t suppose you did.”

  
“It still feels early, too early.” Parvana rubbed her eyes, the sun streaming across her face, catching the gold highlights in her dark brunette hair.  
  
“Are you going to stay here, in Tehran?” Jensen sat up.  
  
Parvana ran her hands through her hair, a gentle sigh as she seemed to contemplate the question. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“I came here because it was the only home I knew, but after the incident, after everything that’s happened. I can’t call it my home anymore.” She rolled on her side, to face him, “I came home to my people who reject people like me, in a world we no longer own.”  
  
“People like you?” Jensen ran a hand over his beard, he needed a shave.  
  
 “The augmented.”  
  
“You’re Muslim.” Jensen inferred.  
  
“My mother was very devout. It was the religion of her people, of her time.” Parvana stared at the ceiling as she spoke, tracing the cracks in the drywall with her gaze, “The second revolution put our country into a political disaster. They forced out the augmented and the Islamics. They live side by side in the ghettos, it’s on the forefront of war.”  
  
“That’s why you were so angry when Megan’s research made you like this.”  
  
“It used to be,” she sighed, “but now I’m just angry that I’m a tool for some group I don’t even know, or understand.”  
  
Jensen hesitated, but he decided her choices were hers alone in the end. “So what about working with the Collective?”  
  
“I’m a fugitive, they have resources.” She closed her eyes, “I don’t have many other options now.”  
  
———— _Ghetto Market, Tehran, Iran_ ————  
  
For a person that didn’t believe that this city was their home any longer, Parvana did not have any difficulty easing through the crowds of locals, shouting and elbowing her way through the masses like any other native. Alex was hung up on an emergency flight call for another Collective operative, they were stuck in Tehran for the time being and Parvana had insisted they needed to eat before they died of starvation and exhaustion in the safe house. Jensen himself, had remained ever skeptical. He’d followed the girl, wrapped in her shroud of a head scarf, the mountain of tan-coloured cotton piled on her shoulders. He didn’t move nearly as neatly as she did through the crowds, his height and lack of spatial orientation in the unfamiliar landscape leaving him always several steps behind the small woman in the overwhelming wrap.  
  
He didn’t catch up with her again until she stood before a stall offering what Jensen assumed to be meat on a large metal skewer, the spices again assaulting his nose, as the meat was left to burn on the fire pit. Shashlik, she’d called it, the meat Jensen couldn’t identify. He wasn’t sure if he’d even been hungry, let alone hungry enough to eat food manhandled by a homeless man in the ruins of the outskirts of a city.  
  
“Don’t be a chicken, Adam.” She smiled, elbowing him in the side.  
  
The familiarity crept up on them, three days of knowing each other somehow felt like enough to have know each other an eternity. Parvana had mused to him last night as they shared a post-fuck smoke that it made sense because they understood each other, been through similar hells. Jensen was surprised he found himself agreeing with her.  
  
He tried to protest, ”I don’t know if I’m hungry”  
  
“You fucking Americans,” she laughs, “you’re all the same.”  
  
Her laughter isn’t malicious, she’s genuinely amused.  
  
“What do you mean, then?”  
  
“All so anal about things,” she shoves the stick of meat at him. “Especially food. Come on.”  
  
Jensen was sure she’d seen the flicker of a smile creep across his face, the look of triumph on her own face was unmistakable. Jensen pulled a piece of the meat off the stick and ate it to appease her. It wasn’t terrible tasting, but it wasn’t in his palate of food. The meat was greasy, overcooked and over-seasoned but he’d had worse meals, in worse company.  
  
“Where are you going, when you’re done here?” She rubbed her hand along her mouth, when they’d finished.  
  
In honesty, he wasn’t sure. The Collective was still trying to secure his place on Task Force 29, what they suspected was an Illumanti front. When he’d stumbled into the raid on Sarif Industries back in Detroit and ran into TF29 the first time, he hadn’t expected it to become part of his life. After joining up with the Collective, they’d decided to work the angle of his newfound relationship with Christian Jarreau and the Task Force to get an inside agent. The application process had proved lengthy, Jensen had now found himself in a waiting game as he hadn’t heard back from Interpol in any way in a while. He hadn’t been too concerned, it was the Collective, if they wanted it they would make it happen.  
  
“I’ll probably go back to America.” Jensen mused.  
  
“I’m thinking I’ll hide out in Berlin for a while.” She looked up at him as they walked alongside each other through the throngs of people in the street, “I mean, hang out with the hipster tech scene, blend into the faceless young crowd.”  
  
“Probably best you don’t stay here, with Steiner-Bisely out for your blood.”  
  
Parvana pulled her cowl around her face closer, “Between them, and the other feet I’ve stepped on getting info, I don’t think I’m safe anywhere in the world.”  
  
“You have any idea what Janus would want with you, anyways?”  
  
“Insider knowledge. Particular skill set,” she laughed lightly. “Probably not much different than why he recruited you.”  
  
“You’ve got me there.”  
  
They turned back through the crowd, heading aimlessly towards more rows of stalls, the seemingly endless vast marketplace swallowing them up in it’s massive space. Jensen heard his info link click on, surely it was Alex, she’d be ready to pick them up. He’d be relieved to get out of this city, this country even, to leave the hostility and foreign atmosphere miles behind him. Something, however, was nagging at Jensen as he looked at the girl and thought of their planned departure.  
  
Alex’s voice stepped in. “You ready to get the hell out of here, Adam?”  
  



	5. Author's Note

This is just a planned hiatus for the holidays, post-exams, I'm also currently neck deep in Final Fantasy XV and drowning in my sorrow on that one so, give me a little


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